This invention relates to a poultry conveyor system having a plurality of vertically elongated poultry carriers pivotally suspended from an overhead conveyor for travel along a conveyor path through at least one station at which the carriers are supported by rollers on a load supporting track parallel to the conveyor path.
Conveyor systems of the foregoing type are already well-known as disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,291,303 and 3,781,946. In such conveyor systems, a necessary measure of lateral stability is provided for the load carriers during travel through a weighing station, by use of laterally spaced rollers on a single roller shaft riding on a split type track accommodating pivotal suspension of each load carrier from a location on its roller shaft between the rollers. Use of a single roller shaft from which each load carrier is suspended as compared to longitudinally spaced roller shafts, enables closer spacing between load carriers along the conveyor path of travel. It will be appreciated that production flow rate, or conveyor speed, will depend on the spacing of the load carriers along the conveyor chain from which the load carriers are pivotally suspended by pulling links connected to the roller shafts. Thus, production flow rate or conveyor speed is increased by decreasing the spacing between load carriers to a minimum which is dependant on poultry dimensions.
It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide a single poultry conveyor line of the foregoing type in which either a further increase in production flow rate is achieved without any increase in conveyor speed or a reduction in conveyor speed is achieved without any reduction in production flow rate.